


something close to it

by 8The_Great_Perhaps8



Series: all your faves are schizophrenic [3]
Category: Until Dawn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Polyamory (sort of), Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia Written By Schizophrenic, Schizophrenic Josh Washington
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:27:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5180372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8The_Great_Perhaps8/pseuds/8The_Great_Perhaps8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Josh was young, he was normal. His favorite color was blue, his favorite word was ripple, and he had two baby sisters who he loved absolutely to death.<br/>Be careful what you wish for, apparently.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something close to it

**Author's Note:**

> no matter what the crappy until dawn wiki says josh is schizophrenic

It starts like this: Joshua Washington, aged one and a half years, is sitting in the hospital waiting room with his daddy, waiting for his baby sisters to get born. Josh has faded memories of this moment, sepia and dusty and warbling like an old phonograph.

“Josh,” his daddy says, maybe, “are you ready to be a big brother?”

Josh nods eagerly, happy to be the focus of his daddy’s attention. He doesn’t exactly know what big brother-ship entails, and maybe his daddy explained it to him, and maybe he didn’t, but Josh knows that he will be the best big brother he can be.

//:\\\

Half an hour later, the nurse comes out to let Josh and his daddy in to see his new baby sisters.

“Elizabeth,” Mommy declares proudly, bouncing the baby girls on her lap, “and Hannah.”

Josh stares, owl-eyed, at his new baby sisters. Both have their eyes squinched shut. Both their cheeks are ruddy and both are wrapped in identical pink blankets. Josh, for the life of him, can’t tell them apart.

“Mommy,” he asks slowly, “when are they gonna start lookin’ different from each other?”

“As soon as they feel like it,” Mommy answers cryptically. She smiles at her oldest child, and her oldest child is kindly escorted out of the maternity ward.

//:\\\

Now, Josh is six and three quarters and Hannah and Beth are a little older than four and he can tell them apart, now. Hannah is small and shy and hopeful and prefers caramel to chocolate, while Elizabeth-but-I-wanna-be-Beth is tall and loud and protective and prefers butterscotch to everything. Hannah watches Power Rangers with Josh, and Josh watches Sailor Moon with Beth, and they all watch Pokemon when their parents aren’t home.

Josh is in the beginning throes of second grade, and his sisters are in kindergarten, and his parents come home at night and everything is fine.

There is no unusual incident, and this is the last time that Josh can say that. At most, Beth breaks Hannah’s Barbie, and cries to Josh to fix it, pwease, because she doesn't know how to say her l’s yet. Josh takes it to dad for his hot glue gun, and everything is fine before Hannah even notices.

//:\\\

In the middle of third grade, with Josh almost eight and his baby sisters both in first grade and happy, Hannah finally learning to make friends and Beth finally learning to let Hannah talk, Josh meets a boy named Chris.

Chris is two months older than Josh, and he has platinum blonde hair and icy blue eyes and Josh’s heart thumps wildly when Chris looks at him. Chris is nice and soft and has round edges where Josh has sharpened corners, and they became friends because a boy snaps a girl’s training bra.

Josh and Chris become best friends faster than you can say _snap,_ and Josh becomes more interested in spending time with his new friend than with his two baby sisters. Chris is shiny and new and makes Josh think that if he looks at him for too long his eyes are gonna start burning. Chris, to Josh, is as bright as the sun, as beautiful as a million diamonds, and might just be Josh’s first love.

Josh blunders through his prepubescent affair with safety scissors and glitter glue and a valentine that has the word ‘bro’ on it. One day, in late April, after his baby sisters turn six, Chris’ friend Emily dares him and Josh to kiss. Josh has never turned down a dare and Chris has never backed down against Emily, and Joshua Washington’s first kiss is amidst the clamor of cherry bomb and Em squealing in laughter, and the aftermath is both Josh and Chris turning away and _bleh_ -ing and being disgusted with each other and their lips and Emily.

“Ewww,” Emily finally giggles. “I can’t believe you _did_ that.”

“It’s not like you’ve ever kissed anybody!” Josh finally bursts out. Emily’s face flushes crimson and after the briefest beat of silence, Chris and Josh start snickering themselves.

“I’ll show you!” Emily shrieks. She marches over to the kickball court and tugs Samantha du Chusane around by the shoulders and kisses her, full on the lips.

With Sam still standing there, shocked, Emily turns around, tugs her lower eyelids down, and sticks out her tongue at Chris and Josh. Everyone except Emily is frozen-Chris and Josh didn’t think she would do it, Sam is still shocked at being kissed by _Emily Pha_ , of all people, the prettiest girl in the third grade, and everyone else is shocked that the most tomboyish girl, the girl who has never yielded to a boy or a teacher or anybody in her whole entire life.

And then, Chris and Josh erupt into loud, raucous laughter, and so does everyone else.

//:\\\

Over the summer, Josh invites all of his friends over to his house so that they can have a pool party. His parents ask him to please let Hannah and Beth play, too, and Josh sighs out a _fine._

His friends have expanded from his baby sisters and Chris to his baby sisters, Chris, Em, and Samantha, who was once only known to be the girl that Em kissed for no reason.

Hannah hides at the bottom of the pool, still not entirely comfortable with making new friends, still not okay with looking people in the eye when she’s only just met them. She stays there until halfway through the party when, with Beth pushing behind her, she informs Sam that she likes her haircut. Sam traps Hannah in conversation, and after Sam leaves, Hannah informs Josh that she thinks that she has made a new friend.

Beth, always the loud one, always the fast one, always the one to fall in love with the world, informs Josh, loudly, that she has made _three_ new friends, and that she would like for Emily to come back so that they can finish their diving contest.

What Josh thinks, is that Sam is like the moon, or one of those heat-reflecting sleeping bags, because she always takes out the best in people, their warmth, their loveliness, their perfection, and sends it back to them tenfold, returns it to their original owner so that they can feel what they really are. Josh thinks that Sam is, maybe, the type of friend that you could call during the night, when there’s danger on the air, and she could keep you safe and make you into someone who wouldn’t fear the dark or the danger.

Emily is, to Josh, Sam’s complete opposite. Emily is the overloading circuit, or maybe Emily is the sun boiling the ocean. Emily has too much energy for herself, too much energy for anyone single human being. Josh doesn’t think Emily will give up her energy for other people the way Sam does, though. Josh thinks that Emily is Emily, full of too much energy, and that she also has an extra dozen batteries buried inside of her for when she needs to bring herself back to life. Emily is the type of friend who you call in the daylight hours, and she makes sure that there is never any darkness or danger for you to fear.

Chris, Josh decides, is the ocean, is the thing that all life comes from, is blood and is tears and is full of life. Josh’s only friends would be his two baby sisters if it weren’t for Chris and his blood and his waves and his deepness and all the bioluminescent (a six-syllable word!) fish that live in his eyes. Chris is the type of friend that exists within all of his other friends, the type of friend that is never really gone from you, the type of friend who is always holding your hand, even when you can’t see him.

And, Josh thinks, if Chris is the ocean then Josh will become the fish, and he will live among Chris and he will keep him safe.

All Josh has ever wanted to do was keep his friends and his baby sisters safe.

//:\\\

Fourth grade brings Em and Sam and Josh and Chris all part of the same table group along with a new kid whose name is Matthew Carpenter, but you can just call him Matt. So far, Matt is hitting it off great with Sam and Emily and Chris, but Josh has decided to wait on passing judgement on the new kid until he can decide what kind of person he is, what kind of friend he might turn out to be.

It is mid-October of fourth grade, after Chris’ birthday, that Josh finally finds an opportunity to see what type of friend Matt might be. Josh already has a sneaking suspicion that Matt is the kind of friend who will drop whatever he’s trying to do to help someone. In the same way that Emily’s most striking feature is that she sparks, and Sam’s is that she reflects, and Chris’ is that he always, Josh thinks that Matt’s might just be that he’s shaped like a friend in all the important ways.

Josh confirms his suspicions when he inadvertently gets to school late, distracted as he was with the world and the things that lie along his route to school. He hears crying-crying that he’s heard before, crying that sounds like finding a dead baby bird on Blackwood Mountain-and freezes behind a corner, because he also hears gentle talking that sounds like someone helping Sam and Chris with a math problem.

“Hey, it’s okay. Can you tell me slowly?”

“I-” _hic_ “-I was tryda ged my art broject, but-” _hic snort_ “-but dis big kid cabe ober, an’ he took by broject, an’ I worked really hard od it but dow it’s _gone_!”

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. Here, do you want me to take you to the principal’s office?”

“...yes, blease.”

Josh hurries ahead to class, and when Matt walks in, he makes an effort to smile at him.

//:\\\

The most outrageous thing that happens for the rest of fourth grade is that Josh gets all of his friends on April Fool’s day, and then gets pelted with water balloons after school for his trouble, he invites all of his friends over for Halloween and they get sick off of candy and Tim Burton movies, and he kisses Matt on Valentine’s day.

Josh thinks that he is in love, but at this point he doesn’t know how to differentiate between love and friendship yet.

Oh, and Hannah makes friends with Ashley O’Malley, a small Irish girl in second grade, and Beth makes friends with Jessica Mackenzie, who is an eight-year-old on Beth’s swim team.

Josh thinks that this might be what happiness feels like.

//:\\\

Fifth grade brings Hannah getting a pronounced interest in temporary tattoos, Beth gets married to Jessica, and Josh falls in hate with a boy who is strong and muscular and sat next to Chris at lunch.

The boy’s name is Michael Hernandez and Josh thinks that he hates him, very much, but he invites Michael-you-can-call-me-Mike over whenever he invites over Sam and Em and Matt and Chris.

He doesn’t like Mike very much, but Beth does, and Joshua loves his baby sisters to death and beyond.

//:\\\

“Josh,” Hannah says, focusing her gaze on the television. “You don’t like Mike very much, do you?”

“Hmm?” Josh drawls-as much as a ten-year-old can drawl-and looks over at his sister. “What do you mean?”

“You clench your teeth when you talk to him, and you always seem kind of upset when he’s around, and you laugh a little too hard at his jokes,” Hannah answers. “I don’t think you like him.”

“Nah, Han,” Josh says, tossing popcorn into his mouth. “I like Mike fine.”

Hannah stares at the TV in silence for a few minutes, pondering Josh’s response.

“Josh?” Hannah asks. “Mike’s pretty nice. But, if you don’t think so, um. Daddy says that if you repeat a lie, often enough, it becomes the truth.”

With those surprisingly philosophical words, Hannah gets off the couch and walks back to her bedroom.

//:\\\

Josh does end up trying his best with Mike ( _urgh_ ) and he does, end up, almost, being sincere friends with him. They end up with a more antagonistic relationship than Josh and his other friends.

//:\\\

“Hey, jerkwad.”

“Buttface.”

“Ugly.”

“Pervert.”

“Weirdo.”

“Would you two both kindly shut up?”

//:\\\

Over the summer, Josh starts hearing voices in his heads. He goes online, and finds words like _intrusive thoughts_ and _the call of the void_ and _psychological affliction_ and _psychosis._

 _Hey,_ Josh calls, _what do these words mean about me?_

 _Stupiduglymeanieweirdocreepieuglyhahahahalet’sgowatchamovie,_ the voices reply. Then, after they’ve had time to think it over-

_I think it means that you’re crazy, and that we aren’t real._

_Oh well,_ Josh says. _Most of the universe isn’t real, either._

//:\\\

December of sixth grade, first time since kindergarten that he and Hannah and Beth have been in different schools, Josh stabs a kid, and he and Mike end up being better friends.

Maybe take a few steps back.

//:\\\

“Christopher Braus?” The kid asks, and says some other, rude things about Chris, or maybe it’s just the voices that are telling him that.

“Yeah, and Matthew Carpenter? I heard that he’s, like, the dumbest kid in school,” says the same kid.

 _What are you gonna do,_ the voices taunt him, _are you gonna stab him? You’re weak and sad and pathetic and stupid and ugly and no one, no one, no one has ever cared._

“Samantha du Chusane and Emily Pha? They’re a couple of lesbos. Totally hideous, too.” Anonymous Kid says.

The voices clench their fists around Josh’s brain, laugh at him, tell him that he would never, could never, ever, actually get the guts to stab the kid.

“And _Michael_?” The Kid says, and that is the breaking point.

“Piece of _shit_ ,” Josh mutters. He grabs his scissors, no longer safety scissors, these ones long and sharp and have blue handles. He turns away from his science project and stabs the Kid through the hand.

“Josh!” Michael screams, and Josh still has his hands on his scissors, but he moves one up to the Kid’s throat.

“Josh, cut-it-OUT!” Mike screams, and he wraps his arms around Josh’s body-Mike is stronger than Josh, always has been, always will be, but the voices, the voices tell Josh what to do.

Josh secures the kid’s arm in his teeth, and elbows Mike in the face.

That is the last thing Josh remembers, before he wakes up in the principal’s office.

//:\\\

His parents make a donation to the school, Beth beats the kid up, Josh gets a cell phone, Mike’s number, a therapist, and a month’s worth of meds.

It’s not as bad as it could have been.

//:\\\

“Why,” Dr. Hill muses, “do you think you hurt your classmate?”

Joshua hears, “I want information. Why are you so pathetic. You are useless.”

 _Yes,_ the voices agree.

//:\\\

The thing about schizophrenia, is that everyone apparently bought a pair of kid gloves while you were getting diagnosed. Sam and Emily are careful around him when he comes back to school. Matt pulls him aside for a little pep talk before lunch, Chris gives him a soft hug and soft words.

Mike is the only one who hasn’t changed, and Josh thanks god.

//:\\\

“Hey, asshole.”

“Hey, dickweed.”

“How’d it go?”

“Got some meds and a therapist.”

“I’m talking about your Playstation, cockhole.”

“Suck my dick.”

//:\\\

High school is schizophrenia and more meds and Doctor Hill and his baby sisters in middle school, like that isn’t the cutest goddamn thing in the world.

Josh also finally gets to meet the elusive Ashley O’Malley and Jessica Mackenzie on Halloween.

“Hey, you must be Ashley,” he grins, holding out his hand. “I’m Josh, Hannah’s older brother.”

“Hey, Josh,” Ashley replies, friendly. “Nice to meet you.” She shakes his hand with just a bit of hesitation.

“Hey, you must be Jessica,” he grins again. “I’m Josh, Beth’s older brother.”

“Hi, Josh,” Jessica replies. She shakes his hand, too, and then says:

“So, are you the kid that stabbed that other kid like, two or three years ago?”

Josh’s grin freezes on his face. “That’s me,” he agrees.

“Hey, neat,” Jessica says. “Well, good talking to you. I gotta go find Beth and bribe her with some carrots.

//:\\\

Josh is frozen in the bathroom, with all the lights on, sitting in the corner and staring at the door. Josh sees the door shaking, and he is afraid that one of the monsters he saw tonight, or one of the shadows he saw flitting across the windows, is going to come in and get him.

“Josh?” Mike calls, not a monster, not a shadow. “Dude, are you alright? You wanna come back out? Everyone else is already asleep.”

Josh’s tongue freezes in his throat. He gets up, slowly, limps over to the door, and cautiously opens it.

“Dude,” Mike says, catching Josh’s eye. “What’s up?”

Josh’s eyes cloud and his voice starts shaking. “The shadows,” he whispers. “The shadows are coming for me.”

Mike curses under his breath.

“Do you mind if I come in?” Mike asks. “I might be able to keep the, uh, shadows away from you.”

Josh opens the door a little bit wider.

“Fast,” he whispers, tears dripping down his face. “The shadows are waiting for me to mess up.”

Mike slips in quickly, and waits with Josh until he falls asleep.

//:\\\

“Have you found anyone you can trust?”

“I am not here to help you. I want to steal your parents money. You don’t deserve to have friends.”

//:\\\

Being schizophrenic doesn’t really change much for him. Mike still calls him asshole, Chris is still the ocean, and he still loves his baby sisters.

It’s just that, sometimes when Sam texts him, she tells him “dont forget ur meds” instead of “morning.” Sometimes, he can’t do any of the crazy shit he used to do because he’s on new meds. Sometimes, he has to skip out on hanging out over the weekend because he has a therapist appointment.

Josh does what he always does when something’s pissing him off: he makes it into a joke.

//:\\\

**To: Matt, Mike, Emily, Sam, Chris**

hey guess what  
im ur  
schizoFRIENDic

**From: Matt**

Haha

**From: Mike**

hang on im coming 2 kick ur ass

**From: Sam**

oh my god

**From: Chris**

dude

**From: Emily**

no ur a schizHOE

//:\\\

“What do your friends think about your illness?”

“Why do you lie at them? Why don’t they take you seriously? Why are you such a failure?”

//:\\\

High school is inviting his friends up to Blackwood (and letting his sisters and their friends come along too, duh) and generally having a pretty good time.

Junior year is Hannah getting a tattoo, and Josh thinking that it doesn’t match up, his kid sister and adult things like tattoos.

(Senior year is Hannah daring Beth to get a tattoo too, and Josh is so proud that Hannah’s finally the one doing the daring)

Senior year is getting drunk with Chris and spilling secrets about elementary school that no one should have ever known.

Later, apparently, senior year is his baby sisters disappearing, and its Josh locked in a psych ward for two months because after he heard what happened, he went fucking batshit insane and attacked everybody-

Senior year is graduating so doped up on morphine that he can’t see straight.

Senior year is, for the first time since fifth grade, he doesn’t invite anybody over.

//:\\\

“Do you feel responsible for your sisters’ deaths?”

“Why did you kill your sisters? Why couldn’t you be responsible? Why don’t you love them?”

//:\\\

His baby sisters disappearing is everyone asking him if he’s okay, all the goddamn time.

His baby sisters are fucking dead, and apparently all but two of his friends-of _their_ friends,of Ashley, who was Hannah’s first independent friend-were complicit in _their fucking murders._

They even have the gall to apologize.

//:\\\

Hallmark doesn’t make a fucking card for “sorry I murdered your kid sisters,” assholes.

//:\\\

College is zombielike, straight B’s, plotting, planning, revenge.

He will pretend that all is forgiven. He will bring them back to Blackwood.

He’ll scare him the way they scared his fucking baby sisters.

He’ll scare them to fucking death.

//:\\\

The thing about being schizophrenic and your kid sisters dying is that things change.

“Hi, Josh” turns into “Heyyyyyy, buddyyyyy.”

“hey bro” becomes “are you doing alright.”

“Joshua Elizabeth Washington shut up” turns into “take your meds please.”

One with breakfast and one before bed turns into one with breakfast, one with lunch, one with dinner, and three to help you sleep.

This other one with just one a day turns into two a day, three if it’s really bad.

“Definitive prescription amounts” turns into “advised medication levels” turns into “fuck it, take as many as you want.”

Meds that make you better turn into meds that make you worse turn into meds that make you addicted turn into withdrawal symptoms.

Withdrawal symptoms turn into voices.

//:\\\

 _Hurt those ugly sons of bitches,_ the voices murmur.

 _Fuck,_ Josh replies, and arranges to get sawed in half, to get stabbed, to _die._

//:\\\

He sees the guts down on the floor, sees Chris come in to save Ashley.

Josh decides that if Chris is the ocean, then Josh will be the oil tanker.

//:\\\

Josh is laughing when they figure it out. It was Chris of all people, fucking Chris, one of two people who Josh is getting revenge on who didn’t get his baby sisters killed.

Josh can’t stop fucking laughing. Those bastards look fucking angry, they look fucking furious, like it wasn’t _all their fucking fault._

“You fucking killed Jess!” Mike finally screams, and Josh shuts the fuck up real fucking fast.

“ _I_ didn’t kill _anyone_ ,” he replies coldly. “ _I_ didn’t send anyone out into the fucking _cold_ to fend for their. Fucking. Selves! I didn’t fucking murder anyone.”

“I have standards,” Josh finishes.

They’re disgusted with him.

He’s disgusted with them.

His baby sisters are dead and he can’t protect anyone anymore.

//:\\\

They’re going to take him out and they’re going to leave him in the cold, like he always knew they would.

He laughs, he taunts, he antagonizes, he wants them to suffer.

He almost gets shot, and that is the highlight of his fucking life.

//:\\\

“Play it again, Tom,” Josh quotes, laughing, laughing, laughing.

“You son of a bitch,” Mike mutters, and he leaves.

Josh shivers, and he feels like he’s being watched.

//:\\\

He gets bored in the old barn, gets bored real fucking fast.

 _Leave,_ suggests the voice. _Salir, to leave, go out._

Joshua is about to do that very fucking thing when something comes, something that looks like hell and terror and a butterfly tattoo that she wanted her sister to match.

//:\\\

He wakes up in the mines, and he starts walking. There’s nowhere for him to go, nowhere for him to stop, but he thinks that he’s okay with that. He’ll find something.

//:\\\

Something turns into Hannah and Beth singing, that weird little frere jacques song they used to love, from that music box that Hannah got for her eighth birthday.

_Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques,_

_Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?_

_Sonnez les matines, sonnez les martinez_

_Din din don, din din don._

“Shut the fuck up!” He screams, and Hannah and Beth go away.

“Don’t die,” he murmurs. “Don’t die, god, please don’t die, don’t die.”

He turns, and the walls have become alien, hideous, terrible, the entire fucking thesaurus for “things you’ll see when you’re hallucinating.”

“It’s your fault,” Dr. Hill hisses. “You did this.”

Josh, finally, screams.

//:\\\

“Josh, dude, calm down! Josh, Josh, it’s me, man, it’s Mike.”

Josh comes back standing up, shaking, his eyes not working right and neither are his legs but hey here the fuck he is.

“Mike,” Josh rasps, “Mike, please, don’t leave me alone, I didn’t kill Jess, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Shh,” someone says, and it’s Sam, Sam who he could always talk to.

“Sam,” Josh mutters. “Sam, I’m sorry.”

“C’mon,” Mike says, looking over his shoulder, like he’s the fucking schizo in the fucking room, “we gotta get back to the lodge.”

//:\\\

“Freeze,” Mike hisses, when they’re halfway through the water and the bodies, the bodies, they’re just across the way, and-

Josh freezes, and he hears the thing that looked like death and terror and pain and a pair of Barbie glasses at age four.

The thing stays for a little bit, growls and moans and snorts.

Then it leaves, galloping across the room, what the fuck.

 _Dare you to move,_ the voice says.

 _Fuck off,_ Josh says.

//:\\\

The lodge is closer than he remembers, maybe, or maybe it’s just ‘cause he’s awake this time, or maybe it’s because he isn’t alone this time.

//:\\\

The lodge is infested, because of fucking course it is. He runs, scrambles, sprints out to get out after the first distraction.

He never said he was brave. He never pretended to be a good person.

//:\\\

This is everyone getting out of the lodge, then the lodge exploding, then the helicopters coming.

“Stay away from me,” he’d said, over and over and over again. “Stay the fuck away.”

This is getting sedated three times over.

//:\\\

“You’re evil,” Josh laughs, at the police interviews. “You’re evil evil evil. Like Hannah. You want to eat me.”

“Sir, can you tell me what happened at the lodge?”

Josh laughs, laughs so hard. “I told you,” he replies. “We got eaten alive.”

//:\\\

Getting attacked by a wendigo, getting accused of murder, getting back, seeing your baby sister as a cannibal demon and your other baby sister had gotten eaten by the cannibal demon one.

After all of this, it’s getting your friends back, it’s taking your meds, taking them at the right time, the right amount, the right day of the week.

This is getting a million more meds, this is the doctors muttering about PTSD, this is your parents asking you what you saw on the hill.

This is “hey asshole, take ur fucking meds,” this is holding yourself together, this is duct tape and band aids and socks.

This is holding yourself together with anything you can find.

//:\\\

“What did you see when you were up on that mountain?”

Josh doesn’t respond, and all he hears is Doctor Hill’s question.

//:\\\

This is visiting Hannah’s grave and Beth’s grave for the first time since the funeral, this is bringing lilies for Hannah and daisies for Beth.

This is bringing Chris and Emily and Sam and Ashley and Matt and Mike and Jessica.

This is closure, or the closest thing to it.


End file.
